Journal
VETERINARY PARASITOLOGY
Volume 180, Issue 3-4, Pages 383-388Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.vetpar.2011.03.035
Keywords
Flea; Cat flea; Dog flea; Stickfast flea; PCR; Haplotype; Australia; Distribution; Reservoir; Feral fox
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study was undertaken to determine the flea diversity on urban dogs and cats in Australia in 2009-2010. A total of 2530 fleas were recovered from 291 animals (151 dogs, 69 cats and 71 uncategorised dogs or cats) from veterinary clinics across five states of Australia. The majority of specimens were from coastal areas. The cat flea (Ctenocephalides fells felis) was the most frequent flea species identified (98.8%, 2500/2530). The only other flea species identified was the stickfast flea (Echidnophaga gallinacea) from Western Australia. Sequencing of the cytochrome oxidase subunit II mtDNA revealed a single haplotype across Australia within a subset of C. f. felis (n = 19). Our study demonstrated dominance and haplotype homogeneity of C f fells on dogs and cats. Although Ctenocephalides can is was recovered from a feral fox, it was not identified from the sample of fleas analysed. This suggests that, under current conditions, it is unlikely that foxes are reservoirs of C. canis for domestic dogs or cats residing in coastal Australia, as previously speculated. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available